Depression doesn't have to stop or kill John Fetterman

• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

I rarely feel connected to politicians, regardless of their party or platform. Like the blue-collar people I grew up with, I just don't trust 'em. Aside from my shaved head and passion for criminal justice reform, I felt no kinship with U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, either ? even though I voted for him ? until recently, when I learned he had been hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center for severe depression.

The buzz now is whether Fetterman will continue as a newly elected senator. That's his decision, and he has time to make it. No one should try to push, pressure or persuade him to resign. Nor should Gov. Josh Shapiro cheer him into an expected return to the Senate ? that's pressure, too. Few people have a clue about what John Fetterman is feeling now but, whatever he decides, depression doesn't have to stop or kill him.

A living death

A decade ago, I was crawling through the same dark tunnel. Unlike Fetterman, I didn't go to a hospital voluntarily. Instead, I drove to an emergency room, looking for medication ? anything ? that would blow away the blues, or at least stop me from blowing my brains out.

For the previous two weeks, I had grown increasingly depressed. I lost my swag and slowly my will to live. I inhabited a world without color or light. Nothing grew there, certainly not dreams or hope.

"Shake it off," my dad had told me a few days before, which just made me feel like a punk. By any objective measure, my life was better than 99 percent of the people on the planet. But knowing that just added a layer of guilt and shame to an already crushing weight.

After a 15-minute wait in the lobby, a nurse called me into the emergency room. I sat on a white exam table, talking to a doctor for about 30 minutes. Oddly, it gave me some relief. He didn't know me, and I would never see him again. So I answered his questions honestly. He quickly searched my name on the internet and asked me about my work. Then he cut to the chase.

Suicidal thoughts? he asked. Do you own a gun? Feel helpless?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

After several more questions, he stood up. "You're going to need someone to drive you to the hospital."

"Go to hell," I said.

"Either you go," he said, "or I'll have you arrested."

An hour later, at the front desk of a psychiatric ward, I handed a nurse my shoelaces, belt and jewelry, a loss that seemed to strip me of whatever remained of my humanity.

What in the hell had happened to me?

Coming back

Reports on the frequency of depression vary, but some studies estimate as...